PITOM and ALTRAN Italia have recently signed a partnership agreement to develop automated driving systems.

ALTRAN is the global leader in Engineering and R&D services, with a task force of 44,000 employees operating in ~30 countries.

ALTRAN Autonomous Driving competence center is committed on Research, Innovation and Development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for future self-driving cars. Thanks to an open innovation approach, ALTRAN also run a partner research program with start-up, Universities and distinctive technological innovators.

In this framework, ALTRAN and PITOM announce partnership to deploy automated driving systems.

PITOM is a young, dynamic and proactive company, strongly oriented to robotics and to the design and manufacturing of autopilots and unmanned Aerial, Ground and Marine vehicles.

Founded in March 2011 by former researchers from the Department of Electrical Systems and Automation, University of Pisa (DSEA), PITOM reflects the dream of its founders to bring into civilian applications the advanced military technology in unmanned vehicles.

PITOM Team has a large experience since already in 2007 joined the DARPA Urban Challenge, aimed to develop one of the first autonomous car, conceived to navigate driver-less in a urban scenario. Today PITOM is contributing to Horizon2020 HERCULES focused on a new operating system for automotive application.

Together ALTRAN and PITOM will develop fully operational prototypes for ADAS concepts, including advanced IP on artificial intelligence and sensor fusion.

We are proud to share that today we received the visit of Prof. Pu Yongjian and a Chinese Delegation from the Chongqing University. The group headed by Prof. Pu - one of the most influent professor of Economics in China and consultant for the Chinese Government - was composed by 12 Professors and Researchers in the field of Economics and Sustainable Mobility. The visit to Pitom was organized as a follow-up of our participation at the International Forum on Business models for Electric Car-sharing, held in October 2016 in Chongqing. To foster the collaboration among Italian companies and China, we invited some of our partners to share this opportunity and present their activities to the Chinese delegation. Great contributions were given by SIAF, that organized the whole European Travel for the Chinese Delegation, the School of Engineering at the University of Pisa, that hosted a Conference held in the morning by Prof. Pu, Resonate, that facilitated the sharing of ideas between Chinese and Italian participants, Polo Tecnologico di Navacchio, that hosted the event, and Confcommercio Pisa, that provided very useful insights on the accomodation of our Guests.

Many thanks to our industrial partners, Topcon, Zannini/Gemini, Telcomms, EDI Progetti, that presented the high value they can bring to the Chinese market.

And, last but not least, special thanks to our Chinese Friends. It was an honor to be among the three companies you visited in your European trip. It was a great opportunity to strengthen our relation, and foster the collaboration among our Countries.

We have been invited at a great conference in Chongqing to speak about the future of electric vehicles and car-sharing. In our speech, we presented the influence of self-driving technology to foster the wide-spread adoption of electric vehicles for car-sharing. With Prof. Pu, Alfredo Bacci, Cedric Bollorè, and many other great businessmen and researchers. A special thanks is for Prof. Pu, his wife and friends, who did great things for us. We are honored to have been invited and shared wonderful moments together. See you in Pisa!

We want to thank all our friends at the Technology Park of Navacchio, Paolo Alderigi, Monica Forconi, Silvia Marchini, Gaia Orlandi, and many others, who gave us their support during the 5 years spent there. It was an incredible experience, thank you guys!